Virtual Worlds – Page 256

January 24, 2012January 24, 2012

What’s In A Name Yet Again!

“Lastly, I really do regret I that spoiled ‘Ciaran Laval’ s night away from the pub. The way this election is going he may find me there before long.” – Sir Norman Tebbit, April 19th 2010.

The above quote is relevant in the name stakes because it demonstrates I have a persistent online identity outside Second Life circles, although what I was ever doing on The Torygraph blogs whilst sober still remains a mystery, what Sir Norman was referring to is that I’d stated on another blog post of his that I was stone cold sober and agreeing with him, it was a scary evening.

Which brings us to the latest episode of the nym wars and Google +, which rears its head in the shape of form of Google’s Bradley Horowitz suggesting a new and more inclusive naming policy is being r0lled out. Now before you get too excited you need to tread carefully here, Violet Blue, who was very involved in the nym wars because her name was considered to be fake (it isn’t) has posted over at Zdnet suggesting that pseudonyms still aren’t welcome. However Violet seems to be getting a tad confused, Bradley Horowitz is talking of one name nyms, rather than normal looking nyms and this is where it all gets confusing.

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January 23, 2012January 23, 2012

Flags, Inventories, Mesh Deformer and Direct Delivery

There are a couple of items that Linden Lab could do with a little help on and the Adult Community on Zindra are talking of holding a flag competition, although rules on communication make this a little tricky. First of all the Linden Lab help wanted. Linden Lab have now, for a couple of weeks, been seeking feedback on the upcoming direct delivery system for the Second Life Marketplace, details of the direct delivery beta can be found here…. that post really should be a sticky, anyway, Linden Lab need some feedback.

I appreciate that merchants are human too and have time constraints but this is a big change with regards to how people list items on the marketplace and feedback, good and bad, really will help …. ok it should help! There’s a project viewer download and some instructions to read, but if you find the time, try and provide some feedback.

Moving on, both Inara Pey and Tateru Nino, who is poorly and I hope gets well soon, point to a request from Linden Lab regarding a new project viewer that has a simple inventory, the forum post is here….another post that should probably be a sticky. Simple Inventory, as the name suggest, is a simplified inventory, it’s a feature that never quite made it into the basic viewer that was doing the rounds, so if you do get a chance to look at it and post feedback, remember that it was done with new participants in mind.

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January 21, 2012

Scouts To The Rescue Over Billing Confusion

Back on December 14th I pointed out that Local Payments were coming to an end. Local Payments, were a billing method for people outside the USA, which allowed people to pay tier and fees in a local currency. The information in the email advised people to update their payment information.

However there was a missing step, which seems to have caused confusion, it did for me anyway. The issue was that when I went to update my information, the information was already there on my account. I left it there, I didn’t see the point in adding it again when it already existed. D-Day passed, billing went fine and then came the second email, with a title of Final Reminder (which is always worrying):

“Dear Ciaran

This email contains important information that affects your Second Life account and requires action in order to continue any payment transactions with Second Life.

Due to the conclusion of the Second Life local payments beta program, it is required that you add a new credit card or PayPal account by going to your billing information page on Secondlife.com:

Although our local payments beta program ended for a small group, we have extended the deadline to update payments information to another date.

If your payment information has not been updated, your next automatic payment will fail, and you will receive automatic delinquent account messages notifying you of this failure. You may update your payment information at any point, but to prevent this failure, you must do so by a certain date.

If you have any questions or concerns, please visit our Knowledge Base.

Best Wishes,

Linden Lab and the Second Life Team”

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January 21, 2012January 21, 2012

Oh For Goodness Sake LL, Link My Alts!

I’ve just discovered, after reading this thread in the official forum, that people who aren’t PIOF or haven’t passed the Mesh quiz, can’t list Mesh items on the marketplace. A couple of things stand out here, one, I can’t upload a Mesh model and hand it to my NPIOF alt to list on the Marketplace as partially Mesh or 100% Mesh, my NPIOF alt can still list it, they just can’t select that category.

Secondly, people who sell full perms Mesh kits will have customers in the same boat, people will be able to list it, but they won’t be able to click the radio buttons for partial or 100% Mesh. I can understand the passing the Mesh quiz requirement to a degree, I really can’t understand the PIOF requirement because a Mesh model in Second Life should, unless there’s a major flaw, have only been uploaded by someone with PIOF.

However we’re back to an old bugbear of mine, why do I have to put PIOF on my alts to get PIOF rights? I have PIOF, it should cover all my alts for that flag, so once more I have to point to Argent Stonecutter’s Jira-6212 – Create a Master Account.

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January 21, 2012January 21, 2012

SOPA Fallout – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

The fallout from the postponed SOPA legislation has at times got ugly, at times is has shown the bad and there has been a very little bit of good. There are also other external factors that show current legislation has teeth, uncomfortable teeth I should add. Yahoo News Reporting that Megaupload has been shutdown is a little disturbing, although really it’s for the courts to decide exactly what they’re guilty of, a Dutch citizen being arrested in New Zealand and a Hong Kong based website being shutdown suggest there’s not much need for SOPA. Those who had legitimate content on Megaupload are out of luck too, which is one of the problems when actions like these occur.

Then there’s the very disturbing case of British student Richard O’Dwyer as reported by The Daily Mail , who is fighting extradition to the USA to face charges related to running a website that posted links to downloads of copyrighted content. The website was allegedly managed from the UK and hosted in The Netherlands, so quite why he’s fighting extradition to the USA is baffling, if his activities are illegal or a case for the courts, any trial should be happening in the UK.

These issues are happening now, without the need for SOPA or PIPA. Yet Hollywood wants more, the MPAA Twitter account links to articles supporting their stance on SOPA, do they support the extradition of Richard O’Dwyer?

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